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Study

The Ants

Hölldobler, Bert; Wilson, Edward O.

Harvard University Press, 1990

Book or monographhistorical workmixed

What they did

A monograph synthesising the biology of the ants: caste and colony structure, communication, foraging, nest architecture, life cycles, symbioses and evolution across the family.

Studied in
Formicidae
Sample size
monographic synthesis of the ant literature

What they found

Ant colonies are family groups founded by one or more mated queens, with sterile female workers and short-lived males produced for mating flights. Queens of many species live for years to decades, workers for weeks to months, and colony organisation runs on chemical signalling rather than on direction from the queen.

What it means

The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.

How the authors put it

Ant social organisation is best understood as a self-organising system built from local chemical rules, not as a hierarchy with the queen at the top.

How NatureHQ reads it

Cited as reference consensus for the natural history NatureHQ needs and no single paper supplies. The correction it carries is the one most worth making on an ant page: the queen does not command anything. She lays eggs. The word "queen" imported a monarchy that is not there, in the same way "alpha" imported a hierarchy into wolves — and the actual mechanism, thousands of workers following local chemical rules, is the more remarkable arrangement.

Limitations

  • A synthesis across a family of over 14,000 described species; almost any generalisation has exceptions.
  • Predates three decades of molecular and genomic work.
  • Species coverage is uneven, favouring temperate and well-studied tropical taxa.

What this study is used for on NatureHQ

One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.

Finding the paper

Published by: Academic book publishersPublished as an academic monograph.

Search for this paper by title and author

Reference details for this record were entered editorially and have not been confirmed against a bibliographic register. The title, authors, journal and year are enough to locate the paper; we would rather say this than publish an identifier we have not verified.

A note on this reference: Unresolved: title 100%, author matched, year exact; single register (crossref); a register was unreachable on this run — witnessed today by crossref

NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-10.